


Autumn Impressions

by CrepuscularPetrichor



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Autumn, Established Relationship, Historical Dress, Historical Figures, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Scents & Smells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26940331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrepuscularPetrichor/pseuds/CrepuscularPetrichor
Summary: In which Ben feels like a leaf. Or, rather, the absence of a leaf.
Relationships: Caleb Brewster & Benjamin Tallmadge, Caleb Brewster/Benjamin Tallmadge
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Turn of the Seasons: Fall 2020





	Autumn Impressions

All the pine needles dropped in a day. Ben walked down a path blanketed with yellowish-brownish spines. More fluttered down around him in a cloud like rain as the breeze swayed branches high above. 

It wasn’t just the pine trees, either. Oaks were on fire, maples incandescent, birches interrupting the stream of heat with bright pops of trembling yellow. He’d woken that morning to find the world coated in leaves, needing to clear them off of things like a dusting of snow. 

The path through the autumnal forest took him to a low stone wall on which sat one Caleb Brewster, whittling. His face rose from his work as Ben approached. Today, Caleb’s familiar smile made Ben stop in his tracks. It was an image he knew would haunt his memory for decades, Brewster on the gray stones, brown hat tipped back, a frame between ruddy cheeks and the vermilion forest. 

Ben’s world shifted. It was as though he felt it underfoot, a sensation that gravity now drew all things towards Caleb, at the center. Ben stood still to resist that pull a moment longer, to draw out the length of time that passed before he gave in to the inexorable lure of the man in the brown hat with his boundless smile. 

They walked together off the path. Wild things grew here, yet unsuppressed by the taming of mankind. It was probably illusion. There was not a line drawn in the woods past which man said “I dare not go.” But it felt as though no feet had laid their track on this earth since the English settled nearby enough to drive other men away. Squirrels ran across the litterfall, snapping twigs. Wind prowled through the branches. The pair ambled deeper into untrodden terrain. 

There was no definition of “far enough.” There was instead a point beyond which Ben could not bear to be in step beside Caleb and not closer. He touched the sleeve of Brewster’s wool coat. Caleb would not have noticed if he hadn’t been waiting for it. His elbow bent, his hand reached for Ben’s, and he continued, for just a streak of paces. 

Here they were surrounded by the scent of death, but pleasanter than the death smells they’d grown accustomed to that summer. Contrasted with the odiferous bodies of dead men, the death of trees was sickly sweet. Caleb’s coat, as it dropped, raised a billow of brown and browning leaves that added an earthy aroma, mingling with Caleb’s own sweltering musk. A heady combination, against which Ben had no defense. The smell of things so often makes a man want to taste. The taste of Caleb Brewster was salt and heat alongside a bitter swallow of grog. The two went hand in hand, as otherwise there’d be no excuse for the fog that consumed Ben in these moments, these hours that he’d stretch to days if he thought no one would miss him. 

It would soon be too cold for these excursions. Ben shrugged off the thought along with his coat, the sudden absence of wool across his shoulders only a relief. The sweat of walking, of waiting, the sweat of anticipation crawled down his spine at snail’s pace. To be without his waistcoat, his stock, his boots- these were ordinary wants. To be without his stockings, his shirt, his breeches- these were extraordinary. 

There was always a point at which they could pretend this time it would not happen, though it had so many times before. If they so chose, this would mark the end. The last time would have been the last, without their knowing. Ben aimed to pass this point by with rapidity, whenever possible. Nevertheless it lingered, between them, every time. Waiting. As though, even with a history like theirs, the future was left uncertain. As though, having come this far, Brewster might change his mind. He never did. He never had, at least, but… Ben couldn’t know. Faith was well and good when it was placed in something like God, something intangible, which could not walk away. Faith in a mere man would have been entirely unjustified. 

Caleb raised the flask of grog out to him. No going back. He took it. There would be at least one more time. The taste burned him, as if he needed to add to the roil in his stomach, the sweat now gathering at the back of his neck and trickling down below his waistband. Nonetheless he drank, and the sugared spirit swimming over his tongue gave rise to memories. Caleb on his knees, Ben’s fists buried in his hair, on the edge of blindness. Caleb on his back, Ben’s toes digging into mud as he ran his tongue along the underside of Caleb’s thigh. Caleb’s chest against Ben’s back, too hot and sticky and rough, but Ben too needy and whimpering and devoid of sensibility to care. 

Memories increased anticipation and anticipation gave way quickly under the force of Ben’s desire. Handing back the flask, Ben crooked a finger under the checkered edge of Caleb’s neckerchief. Caleb’s skin against his skin, and again the world shifted. He was unprepared this time, could not resist the draw of gravity, and pulled them both down to the ground. 

Autumn leaves leave imprints on the world. They peel up off window glass, leaving shadow portraits, outlines of spines and veins in fragile relief against stark transparency. That was how Ben felt. Like the most of him had been stripped away, and he was bare bones and the fragmented tips of his fingers were all that was left of his skin. Like the trees, he was on fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Apfelessig for creating this collection and giving me excuses to write more Tallster


End file.
